


The Visitor

by Es_Aitch



Series: AU Stories for the Twelfth Doctor [4]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:15:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27872905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Es_Aitch/pseuds/Es_Aitch
Summary: One Shot:  Twelve makes an unexpected visit to Graham several years in Graham’s future.  For the Doctor set between “The Lie of the Land” and “Empress of Mars”.  For Graham and Ryan set sometime after “Revolution of the Daleks” (which obviously hasn’t aired yet).
Series: AU Stories for the Twelfth Doctor [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1137464
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	The Visitor

After Missy revealed to the Doctor that she was remembering all the people she had killed, he needed a break. It was bad enough to have failed in saving the Earth from the Monks, but this – no matter how much he told her it was good – reminded him of that terrible night when he had counted every single entity he had killed by using The Moment. It didn’t matter that he had gone back and changed history, he remembered using it. Remembered killing all of them.

He needed to do what he always did in these moments: run. So, he did. He got in the TARDIS, set the randomiser and let her take him where he needed to be. He hardly glanced at the monitor before exiting the TARDIS. When he did, he found himself in the foyer of a Sheffield hospital. He turned back to look at the TARDIS. “Seriously? I wanted to avoid thinking about death.”

The TARDIS just hummed at him and encouraged him to do some exploring. He didn’t think he knew anyone in Sheffield, and off the top of his head, he didn’t know anyone who was in hospital. But he trusted the TARDIS. She was rarely wrong. So, he walked around as if he owned the place.

The Doctor was mostly wandering. Not really sure where to go and he was definitely not following any signs. But somehow, he ended up in the cancer ward. He pursed his lips as he looked around. There was a young black man standing near a door. He looked distraught. Well, cancer very rarely left any middle ground, either families were excited, cautiously optimistic, or devastated. This person fell into the latter category. 

The young man tilted his head and considered the Doctor for a long time. Finally, he spoke, “Do I know you?”

The Doctor looked around to ensure the man was talking to him. He huffed somewhat embarrassed. “Well, it’s possible, you might. But I don’t know you. Yet.”

The young man held out his hand. “Ryan Sinclair. I was just visiting Gra… my grandfather.”

The Doctor shook his hand. “The Doctor.”

Ryan’s brows drew together in confusion, but then smoothed over. “Oh, you must be here to talk to Graham about his decisions.”

The Doctor tilted his head. “Decisions?”

Ryan shrugged. “He’s fought a long time, but he’s tired. And misses my grandma. I think he…” He shook his head to stop himself from saying it and then met the Doctor’s eyes again. “Take all the time you need. I’ll be in the canteen.”

The Doctor nodded and watched as Ryan left. He wasn’t sure how he got himself into these situations, but once he was involved, it was hard to get out of it again. He pushed open the door and entered the hospital room. In the bed was a man with no hair and of pale complexion. The Doctor looked back to the door and realized there was more going on here than he originally thought.

He approached the bed and looked down at the man lying there. The man slowly opened his eyes and watched the Doctor for some moments before a small smile of recognition appeared. “Hey, Doc.”

The Doctor frowned slightly. “Do I know you? Because anyone who’s met me knows better than to call me that.”

The man chuckled softly. “Apparently not. But I do know you.” He tilted his head a moment. “Or I will know you. Time travel mucks with the mind sometimes.” He gestured to his head before holding out his hand. “Graham O’Brien. I think I’m from your future, but you never gave any indication that you met me before. Of course, I don’t really look like myself, so I suppose given the number of people you’ve met, it’s possible you forgot.”

The Doctor pulled a chair to sit near the bed. “So, when you called me ‘Doc’, you weren’t just calling me part of your treatment team.”

Graham used the controls to adjust his bed so that he could sit up better. “No. I mean, you look nothing like how I’ll get to know you. But it is you. I’m not hallucinating. You’re the Doctor and you travel in time and space.”

The Doctor nodded, and decided that Graham was definitely from his future. He had to be careful. “Crossing my own timeline is dangerous. So, don’t tell me details about myself.”

Graham nodded that he understood. “How did you know to come now?”

Now it was the Time Lord’s turn to chuckle. “Oh, I rarely have control over those things. The TARDIS brought me here. I had no idea why.” He shrugged a shoulder. “I just started to wander the halls.”

Graham muttered. “You never know why; you only know who.” He looked at the Doctor again and smirked as a memory came back to him. “I didn’t understand it when you said you had been an ‘old Scottish man’. But now I do.”

The Doctor really wasn’t sure of what to make of this. Clearly, he met Graham after his regeneration and he had so many questions. But instead, he cocked his head. “You travelled with me for a while, then. So, maybe you know why I’m here now.”

Graham looked down at his hands. “Ryan. My grandson. He thinks I’m giving up. But really, I just have no more fight left.” He paused and took a breath. This conversation hadn’t gone so well with the Doctor before. But maybe it would with this one. “A part of me wants to let go. Is ready to d-die. But the other part…”

“…Is terrified.” The Doctor now understood why he was here. River had spent so much time listening to him as he talked about his time in the Confession Dial. Now it was time to offer all he learnt from her to someone else. He wasn’t sure if it was because of watching over Missy in the Vault, or if all the time in the Dial settled his inner spirit in some way, but he knew why he was here.

“How did you know? You haven’t had that conversation with me yet.”

The Doctor offered a sad smile. “I know because I’m having that conversation with you right now. This isn’t your first battle with cancer.”

Graham shook his head and then recounted the story of his previous battle, of meeting Grace, his remission, and her death – though leaving out how the Doctor had been connected to the last part. “I thought that facing it before, that making this decision to stop treatments, that regaining all the control I thought I had lost, would make it easier. Make me less scared. But… it’s still there under it all. Just a nagging senseless fear.”

The Doctor had listened patiently. He now met Grahams eyes. “There’s nothing senseless about fear. Fear is a superpower. It keeps you safe. Even phobias can be used for good.”

Graham shook his head. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The Doctor frowned. “What? Don’t you believe me? It’s okay, I sometimes have a hard time believing myself.”

Graham chuckled. “No. It’s just quite a change. The last time we talked about this, you went quiet and talked about how your social awkwardness made it hard for you to give a reply.”

The Doctor visibly paled at hearing that. “I did what?”

Graham shrugged. “Let’s just say your bedside manner now is far better than it will be.”

The Doctor swallowed thickly and looked down for a long time, formulating the words. But none really came. “I’m sorry.”

Graham shrugged. “It’s okay. It was a long time ago, now.”

The Doctor reached out a hand and covered Graham’s. “No. Not like that. I mean it, I’m sorry. My future self either wanted to ignore… well everything about me… or I become a complete fool. Either way, I do know better and I’m sorry I will be dismissive.”

Now Graham’s interest was piqued. “You know better? What do you mean?”

The Doctor offered a sad smile. “What kind of answer would you like?”  
“Oh, I don’t know. One that will help me feel less scared.”  
“I can’t help with that. I’m scared of death, too. No matter how many times I face it or even regeneration, I’m still scared.”  
“How do you do it? Go on when….”  
“…When I’m scared out of my mind? Honestly, I’m usually too busy saving the universe to really think about myself.”

Graham chuckled and the Doctor knew he wouldn’t have to explain that. “I got stuck in a place. A closed energy loop. Meaning everything there constantly reset. There was this creature that was hunting me and I knew if it caught me, it would kill me.”

He paused and looked at Graham. He hadn’t told anyone this story since River. Not even Missy knew it. But, he supposed, in a lot of ways the Veiled entity was a lot like cancer. “And at one point it did catch me. It did kill me. But, closed energy loop, so I… reset. And every time I got to that point, just before the creature got me, I wondered if I would survive. I had enough proof that I had survived many times before. But I was still scared each time it caught me, that I would die my final permanent death.”

Graham murmured. “A loop. And you died many times. And you were scared every time.”

The Doctor nodded. “I died over 200 billion times. And I’m still scared of it now. So, I can’t take your fear away. I can’t make it better. But I can say this: you’re not alone in your fear. You are in control now.”  
“Doesn’t feel like I have that much control.”  
“You are more powerful right now than you can imagine. Cancer is a terrible illness, but it’s not a monster stalking you, even if it feels that way. You still have a say in how you fight it. And sometimes, the best way to beat something is choosing how you face it. Stopping treatments isn’t giving up. It’s not giving in. It’s choosing to fight it a different way. It means looking at all the things that scare you the most in the world and saying ‘No! You don’t control me.’ I think the people who can do that are the bravest people I know.”

Graham offered a more genuine smile now. “I never thought of it like that. No one – not even anyone from the palliative team put it that way.”

The Doctor shrugged. “It’s unlikely any of them ever really faced death. Oh, plenty of people make the off-hand comment when they’re really sick that ‘I thought I was going to die.’ But that’s not the same as facing it day in and day out for years.”

Graham nodded in acknowledgement. “Yeah…” He paused for a few moments, looking at the Doctor’s hand covering his. “Doctor, I don’t think it will be much longer. Will you stay with me?”

The Doctor nodded. “Graham, it would be an honour.”

He squeezed Graham’s hand a moment in a comforting gesture. The men then lapsed into talking about football, buses, and all the other mundane things that make up a human life well-lived. But the Doctor knew that Graham was right. He was fading quickly. The Doctor had a sudden thought. “Graham, do you want me to get Ryan?”

Graham shook his head. “No. He lost his mum and his gran. I don’t want him to watch this. If he had wanted to stay, he would have. No. It’s better this way for both of us.”

The Doctor frowned slightly. “But I’m a stranger. Wouldn’t you rather…”

The Doctor broke off as he felt Graham’s fingers tighten slightly on his hand. “You’re not a stranger, Doc. You called us ‘Fam’ and even though you don’t know me yet, I know you. You are a part of my family.”

The Doctor sucked in a breath at that. Sarah Jane had once told him that he acted like such a lonely man, but he had the biggest family in the universe. She had been right. He nodded his head. There was something about hearing that from this stranger that staved off his desire to run. All he could say was, “Thank you.”

Graham asked the Doctor to tell him a story. So, he told him about two boys who grew up as best friends on Gallifrey. He told him how the friends grew apart for many years and now, they were trying to mend their relationship.

As he spoke, he could hear that Graham’s breathing changed. He had enough medical knowledge that the agonal breathing didn’t scare him. He knew it was normal prior to death and that Graham wasn’t suffering or in pain. The medications he was on would ensure his comfort.

The Doctor continued with his story and ended by talking about how there was always hope. It was as he was talking about hope that he heard it. Graham’s final breath. It was like a great weight had been lifted from the human and that final sigh was the release of all that had weighed him down.

The Doctor didn’t even notice the tears that slid down his own cheeks. He leant over and placed a gentle kiss to Graham’s forehead. “Rest well, my friend. You earned it.”

A few minutes later, a nurse came in. She took one look at the Doctor and knew she wouldn’t have to say what she had seen on the monitors. They simply nodded at each other. She spoke quietly. “I have to call someone to do their final checks so they can pronounce him. And his grandson was here earlier.”

The Doctor nodded. “I know. I’ll go tell him.”

The nurse relaxed. Even when families expected the death, telling them was always the worst part. With that, the Doctor went to the canteen to find Ryan. It hadn’t been that long and he thought the lad would still be there. He scanned the space and didn’t see him. He didn’t know this family well, but between what he had learnt about Graham and Grace in that short time, he figured there might be one place to find the youth.

The Doctor found the chapel and quietly pulled the door open. Ryan was sitting there, more stunned than anything. Ryan looked up at the grey-haired man and nodded. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”

The Doctor sat down slowly. “Yes.”  
“You stayed with him?”  
“He asked me to.”  
“I’m glad he wasn’t alone, but I should have been there for him.”  
“He thought it would be easier for you if I stayed with him. In a way, by being here you were there for him.”

Ryan nodded. Then looked over at the Doctor. “You’re the Doctor…. I don’t mean a doctor, but The Doctor, with the TARDIS and all.”

The Doctor nodded. “You both are from my future, though. You know me, but I don’t know you.”

Ryan offered a sad smile. “Or you know us already. After all, you came when we needed you the most.”

After a brief pause, the Doctor commented. “He went peacefully. We told each other stories and he just fell asleep and then everything slowly stopped.”

Ryan nodded, but too many tears were coming for him to speak. Finally, he looked up. “What do I do now?”

The Doctor rested his hand on Ryan’s shoulder in a comforting gesture. “The same thing any of us do when people leave us: Go forward in all your beliefs and prove to him that he was not mistaken in his.”

**Author's Note:**

> End Note: This is born out of how horribly Thirteen treated Graham when he revealed his fears to her. That needed to be fixed. Also, partially requested by Twitter User: @thegeekinside71


End file.
